


the devil went down to buzzfeed

by blackice



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural | S01 - Complete, Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural | S02E01 - The Ghosts and Demons of Bobby Mackey's, Demon Ryan Bergara, Demons, Dramatic Irony, Gen, Ghosts, Hell wants to keep the supernatural hush, Human Shane Madej, Illustrated, but the supernatural just wanna have fun, we're labeling this a Divine Comedy folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-02-16 03:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13045872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackice/pseuds/blackice
Summary: What Ryan needed was an opposite, someone who was comfortable in shooting down the very idea of supernatural, ethereal beings. Someone who could stare a demon in the eye and think: nah.Demon!Ryan works in Buzzfeed to derail any serious belief in Hell, for the loudest whistleblower is the most untrustworthy. He fails to account for two things: Shane Madej and the supernatural’s disrespect.





	1. the devil wears air jordans

**Author's Note:**

> For more demon!Ryan Bergara, check out these links (not mine, either in posting or asking):
> 
> 1) https://badromantics.tumblr.com/post/168559983464/alright-so-everyone-knows-the-demon-shane  
> 2) https://shanebergaras.tumblr.com/post/167041127242/i-know-people-think-demon-shane-is-a-thing-but
> 
> disclaimer: This is a work of fiction involving real-life individuals; please consider their real-life significant others living perfectly sane, fantastic lives in this universe.
> 
> many thanks to these guys: vesperify, kaboomslang, and lionmettled
> 
> edited 2.26.18  
> edited 5.10.18 because shane apparently hates pancakes. the absolute madman. also! expect a second chapter covering the other s1 locations and bobby mackey's! it's happening!!

/hell/

Bergara was not an especially _terrifying_ demon. He might date back to when the First fell, and his powers weren’t anything to sniff at, but when compared to other demons, Bergara was noticeably… not _named_ in all the grimoires of old. It was a little comforting for him to know that Crowley hadn’t necessarily been named either.

However, Bergara possessed several qualities that made him a much better demon than others.

For one thing, he was remarkable at obfuscation, the art of deceiving others. And, unlike the vast majority of demons, Bergara embraced the twenty-first century.

“B E R G A R A,” thundered one of Hell’s overseers. A shadowy figure that stretched high to the ceiling, glowing embers for eyes, and an echoing darkness for a mouth. Normally, the overseer would be a lot less intimidating. Human-sized and dressed in a suit for a Wall Street banker. Bergara had to wonder what got him the special treatment.

“I just got back down here,” said Bergara.

“Y O U  H A V E  A  N E W  J O B.”

This was unsurprising; Bergara had the unfortunate, unenviable reputation of getting his work done _efficiently_. Even Crowley was a procrastinating bastard, to the point where he permanently settled in the British Isles as part of his ongoing second mission to settle ‘a thing’ with one of Heaven’s emissaries.

He made the attempt to argue. “I _just_ got back,” he repeated.

“I T’ S  A N  E A S Y  J O B.”

“Oh, well. If it’s an _easy_ job,” said Bergara, a little bitterly because he really had been looking forward to at least a day of laziness. His last above-ground task—covering up for Chipotle’s latest dietary scandal—had been so _growth_ -oriented. Granted, Bergara adored Chipotle and had even spiced up the business while working for them, but even a sixteen-hour work day was too much for him to tolerate.

Demons might have encouraged capitalism, but they also were advocates of vacation days and slacking off on the clock.

He crossed his arms and waited for the information.

“O B F U S C A T E  K N O W L E D G E  O F  T H E  S U P E R N A T U R A L.”

...

 _Not_ an easy job. It was, by far, the most absurd job Bergara had ever been tasked with. It was also the longest one, threatening to last for the rest of eternity. In the back of his head, he wondered if this was a punishment for actually helping Chipotle adopt healthy alternatives. But since there was so much _justification_ for helping them choose open-range, Bergara had been confident that the misdemeanor would pass without reprimand.

Bergara didn’t dare refuse, but he did raise his voice. “Why is it just me?”

“Y O U  A R E  G O O D  A T  T H I S.”

A compliment? Bergara panicked, saluted, and high-tailed it.

/los angeles/

Ryan Bergara was an intelligent, attractive man who doubled as a count in the diversity column for the company Buzzfeed. And Buzzfeed, Ryan knew, was famous among young people because Buzzfeed produced videos—clickbait videos—that featured intelligent, attractive men. Common sense notwithstanding.

As an intern, he made himself a reputation for being solid and dependable, and he planted the seed of an idea for a show that focused on unsolved mysteries, both supernatural and true crime. And because the best lie used the truth as foundation, Ryan made it _very_ clear that he believed in and was spooked by the supernatural.

Eventually, he got the go-ahead to produce the show. Not as an independent series, unfortunately, but every wonderful plan started small.

His need for a co-host was a bit of a problem. What Ryan needed was an opposite, someone who was comfortable in shooting down the very idea of supernatural, ethereal beings. Someone who could stare a demon in the eye and think: nah.

Anyone could discuss true crime. Not everyone possessed a set of beliefs that could withstand any proof of evidence to the contrary.

Brent had been a great co-host. His abrupt departure—not from life, because Ryan had promised himself not to strike any co-host down regardless of any insult thrown—had kind of bummed Ryan out, because a one-man show couldn’t run by itself for very long. Not even a one-demon show could.

Ryan needed a Scully.

He got one in the form of Shane Madej. A tall, lanky package of a truly unshakable skeptic who looked down at Ryan’s dejected face and said, “Well, why not?”

They’d been interns together, but Ryan did his best to ease Shane into the show, because he knew that his role as an absurd, slightly gullible man of five feet and ten inches (on a good day) was a little off-putting. So their first Unsolved video together was about the Illuminati, a bit of an introduction to the spook element. Discreetly, he kicked the room’s walls and ceiling to test Shane’s reaction to a supernatural phenomenon. Ryan had never done anything of the sort before, but the situation called for some chills up the spine.

Against Ryan’s expectations, Shane loved it all.

“And you said we’re going to go _investigate_ places?” Shane asked, his emphasis on Ryan’s choice of words mocking. They were at their desks, editing and writing clickbait articles, the true lifeblood of the company. “Oo-o-ooh, spoo-oo-ky.”

“People did horribly die in these places,” Ryan reminded him. Reminded himself too, because it would hardly be conducive to the longevity of the show if he let his co-host be attacked by the supernatural. He concealed his sigh. “There’s gonna be like, bad auras _everywhere_.”

“See,” Shane said, “that’s only spooky if you believe in bad auras.” He leaned into Ryan’s space and raised both eyebrows. “Which, uh, I don’t.”

“We’ll see,” said Ryan.

/father thomas’s church/

To Ryan’s delight, the church didn’t try to burn him out of the human shell. Not only that, but Father Thomas didn’t even notice Ryan’s twitchiness about asking for advice on how to repel a demon. Father Thomas had even bestowed _upon a demon_ holy water!

“You are going to be so fucking glad I did this,” vowed Ryan as they left the church. “We are the most protected ghosthunters this side of San Jose.”

“We’re not—we’re not ghosthunters,” said Shane, amused. “You’re just being paranoid. I wouldn’t be surprised if Father Thomas back there bans us from his church.”

Ryan made an agreeable noise.

/winchester house/

Sarah Winchester, when she was still alive, had a bit of a reputation down in Hell. She was almost hilariously susceptible to suggestion, and prior to her death, it’d become a thing for demons to ask some poor bastard (a victim of a Winchester rifle, of course) to screech at Sarah for a hot second at three in the morning.

The widow had poured her entire life into the very soil of her property, and so she haunted her house. It was basically impossible for her _not_ to haunt her house. Hell’s most silver-tongued had met with Sarah to try and convince her to come down to Hell after a failed attempt at reaping her soul, and the demon had been left baffled, and not a little starstruck.

Ryan, after petitioning the tourist company to let him and Shane poke around the house, had stayed for a few extra hours until Sarah had appeared in front of him, curious and grumpy.

“I have no interest in being damned for eternity,” said Sarah loftily from her wheelchair. Out of respect, Ryan was cross-legged on the floor, looking up. “The least Hell can do for me, after years of torment whilst I was _alive_ , is let me linger in my home.”

“Yeah, no, not here for that.” Ryan laced his fingers together in his lap. “Nah, me and a co-worker are coming by to look around tomorrow. With a camera crew.” Sarah raised an imperious eyebrow, and he hastened to clarify, “We’re ghost… investigators. Part-time.”

A second imperious eyebrow went up. “You already know I exist.”

“Well,” said Ryan, “my job is to fail the investigation while looking like I’m trying to succeed.” A part of him was still in disbelief that Hell had given him this job. The other part was grimly slogging on. Ryan was here to negotiate with Sarah _not_ to give the video concrete evidence of the supernatural. Noises could be explained away. Translucent apparitions couldn’t.

“I don’t understand.”

“Just, uh, just don’t expose yourself, or I’ll ask for an earthquake to shake more of your house down.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You’ve surely seen the blueprints, and even if you haven’t, it is common knowledge that I asked for the house to be built on a floating foundation.” She lifted her chin. “Do not threaten me.”

“Please don’t expose yourself?” amended Ryan, a little nervous now. He had the threat of arson, of course, but the last demon to voice it to Sarah Winchester had met the grisly fate of corralling all the paperwork for the endless line of Winchester rifle victims.

When the g-ddamned _Devil_ (official, capital ‘D’, Devil) liked Sarah more than his own forces, there was something terribly, terribly unfair going on.

“Hm.” The ghost studied Ryan. “Fine,” she said suddenly. “I will restrain myself from manifesting, but I want to see who the poor soul you’re dragging along is.”

-

So Sarah had dropped something on the floor above. Ryan was fine with that. Last night they’d settled on making random noises permissible, apparition impermissible, and any harm to anyone forbidden. He had his suspicions about Sarah’s involvement in draining the battery, but batteries fucking up were a common scientific phenomenon.

Either way, maybe he should’ve added the clause about spontaneity.

The Winchester house investigation didn’t give Ryan a real fright until the lower levels, when he and Shane split up to explore. With the camera crew behind him, Ryan’s ability to speak to Sarah’s ghost was limited to incoherent muttering, and his nerves were getting a little shot when out of the fucking darkness, something—some _one_ —eight feet fucking tall lurched toward him with a raspy breath.

In addition to that, someone—no, some _thing_ —four feet two inches, glowing a subtle translucent green, rolled forward while clearing their throat.

Ryan shrieked.

Shane, probably terrified of Ryan’s imminent heart attack, made a half-hearted attempt at comfort. Sarah, clearly unimpressed by the fortitude of a demon, rolled her eyes and faded from existence a little more.

“You,” Ryan gasped out, bent over, “piece of shit, Shane.” He made sure to look at Sarah while delivering the reprimand.

Sarah wheeled herself backwards, out of range of the microphones. “I might have shorted out your young man’s device,” she said. “He was walking into a dead-end, and I thought he’d like a sign to move away back into your… circle of safety.” The disdain from this woman was _powerful_. Maybe Ryan would tell management to try and recruit her again, but without lying about the condemned for eternity thing.

He stifled the urge to flip Sarah the bird, and instead inclined his head in acknowledgment. To Shane, he hoped, it would just look like he was trying to catch his breath.

“Alright,” he wheezed, “okay, okay, we’re done. We’re done down here.”

“Oh good,” said Shane, absurdly pleased. “My back was starting to hurt from all the hunching over I’ve had to do.”

As the two of them and the camera crew left the Winchester House, Ryan glanced back to see Sarah slowly come to a stop at the front door. She raised a hand and waved, presumably farewell. It was a little too far for human eyes to detect any flicker of emotion over that haughty face.

Shane noticed Ryan turning. “Seeing _ghosts_?” he mocked.

“Shut up, Shane.”  

/island of the dolls/

Okay, the island of the dolls was a selfish decision on Ryan’s part.

Ryan had never visited the area, not even when he wasn’t Ryan Bergara. But word got around in Hell, and the island was one of those vacation spots for demons. Tourism made the place ripe for sowing fear into humanity, and the sheer amount of possessionable material was just too much temptation, even for a demon.

And, of course, there was always Julian Santana Barrera to drink with.

Except Barrera didn’t technically haunt his island. The actual soul of Barrera had passed on, though the man had skipped through Hell straight to the neutral area of death. Barrera hadn’t warranted a license to Hell, unlike Sarah Winchester, who bore her share of sins by profiting from her husband’s company instead of refusing the blood money. Barrera had just been a man redeeming his shitty behavior by trying to appease the ghost of a child.

Unfortunately, given all the dolls Barrera had spent collecting, remnants of him were trapped.

The Unsolved production crew spent their free night together painting Mexico City red. Ryan had intended to visit the island alone, to determine if the Barrera remnants were any danger before he let Shane walk in with him, but—but the alcohol.

So much stronger than what Ryan’s body was used to.

“Did I find a Grim last night?” he croaked to Shane the next morning, pushing his food around with a fork. The restaurant they were in was painted a bright, searing yellow, and it burned into his eyes better than any hellfire could.

Shane blinked slowly at him. “Ryan,” he said. “Grims don’t fucking exist.”

Ryan gave up on the jokes. It was just too early.

-

The only corporeal inhabitants of the island were spiders, cats, and empty dolls. The loud thump on Julian’s ceiling had definitely freaked Ryan out, but his senses had frantically scanned the area and found it wanting of supernatural beings.

He hadn’t done it, not like when he shook the room back in Los Angeles for the Illuminati episode. Pepe was a human, through and through. But… Ryan stole a quick glance at Shane’s face, which was only slightly startled as opposed to completely startled.

 _Nah_ , thought Ryan. _He probably thinks it was some cat_. Shane was a known human entity; Ryan had fucking sat next to the man as they were interning at Buzzfeed together. There wasn’t any question about Shane’s humanity.

… Still. There wasn’t any harm in double-checking.

They had the one place left: the Sallie House in Kansas. Ryan had slotted enough free time into their travel schedule to slip away from the crew for the first night, just to go and negotiate his circumstance with the resident demon there. He’d have to squeeze in a call to his overseer sometime after.

/sallie house/

From an objective point of view, Ryan knew he looked like a drunk asshole talking shit to an empty house. But he was too jetlagged to try and weave a glamour over the scene, and Ryan didn’t feel like venturing in and finding the demon.

So he was settling for talking shit and laying down the law.

“Listen up,” said Ryan, conscious of the fact that he was talking to a screen door. The demon—definitely one not going by the name of Sallie—was in the house. Their power had seeped into the wood, the carpet, the electrical wiring. But they were weak, and younger than Ryan, so he felt comfortable in presuming dominance. “Me and some humans are coming over tomorrow night, and you aren’t gonna show yourself to anyone or anything. Sound good?”

A soft hiss of protest.

“Good.”

They were weak, and Ryan was strong. This wasn’t a contest of willpower, and if Ryan hadn’t felt compelled to honor several millennia’s worth of etiquette, he wouldn’t be holding the negotiation at all.

Ryan didn’t bother asking them to show themselves, or for them to bow down as physically as they should spiritually. Instead, he checked his watch, and then went to call Hell to follow up on his ruminations about Shane.

-

Shane checked out as one-hundred percent human. Zero demonic influence upon him or his family. He wasn’t even listed on the catalog of rogue demons (well, as rogue as an agent of chaos could get). For all that Ryan’s thoughts were correct, it didn’t take away the unease that came after the island of the dolls.

Something had moved out there without his knowing so. Ryan could chalk Shane’s reaction to instinctive skepticism, but he hadn’t found anything to reason out the thump on Barrera’s ceiling.

He’d have to look into it later.

-

The next evening, when Ryan stepped into the house with Shane behind him, he knew in that instant that he’d made a… minor mistake. Nothing that would off the humans (including the one he’d invited over), thankfully, but still detrimental to his overall job of obfuscating evidence of the supernatural.

 _Should’ve checked the kid, Bergara_ , he thought ruefully, determinedly not staring at the child-sized demon slowly putting themselves together next to Shane. Their eyes were glistening black mirrors, narrowed and hateful.

Weak? Yes.

Pissed-off? Unfortunately.

Ryan clicked his tongue once the demon had fully manifested, and almost immediately their chubby hands went to clutch their pale neck. A small curse—because that was all he could risk, in both his power output and the breach in etiquette regarding one demon’s actions to another—to keep the EVPs to a bare minimum.

Shane was dismissive of photographic ‘evidence’, like most skeptics who’d seen a grainy picture and the vague outline of a supposed phantom. His skepticism was limitless, to the point where Ryan wondered if he could toss the man into a wall and receive a calm, grounded reason for it.

The conditions for Shane to become a believer were simple, easy things that Ryan had taken care to prevent.

One: Shane had to see an apparition for himself. Ghosts were able to force themselves back into a semblance of existence, and so Ryan knew to take precautions in negotiating their level of presence. Demons, on the other hand, were simply unable to manifest if they had no shell to inhabit and consequently chose to haunt in dreams or affect the sanity of their victims.

Which brought Ryan to condition number two: Shane had to hear, without any helpful hints, a coherent EVP. Ryan had explained to Shane that because the supernatural often were too quiet to hear, most ghost investigators used EVPs to determine the existence of a ghost.

Because Shane was Shane, Shane declared the proof of EVPs bullshit until he was proven otherwise.

Ryan had dealt with this issue successfully with Sarah Winchester. Peacefully, even. If he hadn’t been so tired last night, Ryan could have either gotten the demon to vow silence or temporarily put a much more refined volume curse on the house (the demon's  _shell_ , so to speak) itself, so every sentence the demon made stuttered into static.

His improvised gag curse had to work, because even with Ryan’s nudge to increase audio interference, the demon was likely to attempt screeching a comprehensible message.

“You alright there?” asked Shane, twitching the flashlight over to Ryan’s face.

He squinted through the glare. “No, Shane,” he answered. “This house is already giving me chills.”

Shane laughed, perpetually incredulous of Ryan’s admissions of terror. This particular one, though, had the inklings of _mild_ anxiety. Something about the twisting shadows in Ryan’s peripheral was sparking that gut instinct to grab the crew and bolt. It was tugging the need to assert his power, an act that would require him to drop the glamour over his eyes and match black to black, glare for glare.

Ryan knew he could win. It would be so simple to just pull the demon from the house’s framework and sit them down in Hell for the duration of the episode, but the Sallie House was, regrettably, property Ryan couldn’t affect without repercussion.

Tourism. A valuable, valuable source of spiritual income, one that Hell needed when all Heaven had to do was set up a church and a minister.

He dropped his defensive tactics when the demon pointedly didn’t bother showing up in the nursery. Secure in the comfort that nothing out of the normal bullshit supernatural would happen—say, a light going off, or a footstep or two in an empty room—Ryan let himself really get into his role.

At least Shane seemed to be having a blast. It was hard not to grin back when Shane caught sight of Ryan’s ‘oh no’ grimace when his flashlight flickered out.

Then they went into the kitchen.

Oh, would Ryan get so much shit for what happened in the kitchen.

The paranormal expert fiddled with the flashlight before setting it down on the counter. It was a classic move to up the ante on ghost shows, because all it needed was a little nudge from a draft, and bam! The flashlight would flicker on at a polite ‘request’, or challenge, depending on how daring one felt that night. Ryan absently wondered if he could toy with the light, making it flicker on long after a demand was made. It’d certainly spark a discussion of scientific glitchery versus demonic touch.

As they all stood back to watch the flashlight _not_ work, a terrible, terrible thing happened.

The demon walked into the room, just as the expert asked them to pretty please turn the light on. They stared Ryan dead in the eyes, mirrored black pools catching the glare from Ryan’s own flashlight. Under his breath, Ryan ordered, “Don’t do it.” _Don’t you fucking do it_.

“Demon?” asked Shane suddenly, stretching the ‘mon’ out in that stupid dumb tone.

They looked at Ryan’s partner. They looked at Shane like they were gaining strength in indignity, insult fueling spite strong enough to break Ryan’s compulsion. With a sinking heart, Ryan found himself reliving the previous night and his decision to not bind and gag the demon.

Maybe he could still do damage control.

“Stop talking to it!”

Like the skeptic asshole he was, Shane didn’t acquiesce to Ryan’s demand. Instead, he fucking moved closer to the flashlight, indirectly putting himself in front of the demon. It was like waving tinder over a blaze. Ryan swore at Shane, desperate to pull him back.

“If you _don’t_ like us,” said Shane with a grin, “turn it on.” The demon, now perched on the counter, grinned back at him.

A little horrified, Ryan interjected, “Please don’t—”

The demon glanced back at Ryan, blew a raspberry, and nudged the flashlight. Ryan screamed, and the terror was half-real, half-fake. Their cover was being blown, and it was all because Shane thought the supernatural was a hoax.

-

He scolded Shane for it as the crew made their way to the basement. “You should’ve never fucking talked to it, dude,” said Ryan, nervously clicking his tongue every three steps. The walls weren’t closing in, but Ryan thought he could see the start of an unnatural shadow seeping through the plaster every now and then.

The fact that it kept toeing the line, even after it flinched back each time Ryan set off a warning spell, bothered him immensely.

“Ryan,” responded Shane drily, “I’m just helping you get the, uh, the _evidence_.” He cracked a smile.

Ryan, unable to stop himself from smiling anxiously back, clicked his tongue again but with self-preservation in mind. A small curse. Something that would let him keep his glamoured eyes intact against the odds of the demon ripping the concealment or the slight chance Ryan would overextend his powers, because if the Sallie House was intent on exposing the supernatural to all of Buzzfeed’s impressionable viewers, Ryan was as equally determined to keep his disguise.

He kept hold of the holy water, even though he could feel it warming through the plastic in reaction to his presence.

A last minute precaution. Thank g-d he’d swindled it out of Father Thomas’s charitable hands.

-

The basement was where Ryan decided, _Fuck it. We’re leaving as soon as possible. Just gotta find a good excuse_. Their situation was teetering between salvageable and ruinous. On one hand, being this close to an electricity source provided him all the audio interference he needed to obscure any EVPs the demon might spit out, but on the _other hand_ , the demon was liable to start cracking down on Ryan’s gag curse.

Also, Shane was taking up the offer to lay on the pentagram and ask the demon to take his body as a host. Which, fuck no, Ryan had sworn to himself to let no harm be done on his crew.

And since he was supposed to keep the existence of the supernatural hush, Ryan guessed, begrudgingly, that he would have kept the paranormal ‘expert’ safe as well if he’d laid down there instead.

As Shane went to approach the pentagram, Ryan slapped a hand on the human’s bicep. Magic sifted its way past red flannel and pale skin, forming a bone-deep protection sigil. It was clumsily done, but the intention was honest and heartfelt, so Ryan would have to hope it worked.

“You’re fucking insane,” he told Shane, squeezing the lean muscle tightly once before letting go.

Shane glanced at the spot curiously, and he absently rolled his shoulder as he rolled his eyes. “It’s a floor, Ryan.”

“Uh-huh,” said Ryan, eyeing the demon slip out of the air. They sat on the back of a chair placed before the pentagram, and they gazed at the flashlight and at Shane’s tall, seemingly vulnerable form with anticipatory amusement. “If you do get possessed, sir, I am fully within my rights to splash holy water on your face.”

Two safety nets. If Ryan could have had it his way, there wouldn’t have been any need for _one_.

The demon’s head snapped up to consider Ryan, a demon-in-hiding, and the water bottle of holy water clutched in his hand.

Shane issued his challenge, and Ryan started hissing under breath for the demon to _not_ obey. Then Shane threw Ryan’s heart into the question, and if there was any truth demons were compelled to expose, it was the violent urge to off somebody.

So the demon swelled up, and their eyes flashed white then black.

Ryan glared and mouthed a firm ‘no.’

They sneered. “B i t c h, t r y  m e.”

And the flashlight flickered on.

And it flickered off on command because the demon was nothing but a petty asshole who grinned at Ryan’s desperate attempts to save the supernatural’s facade. It was here Ryan made an executive decision as the creative mastermind of Unsolved and Hell’s personal smear campaign manager: fuck the show. He would wait for an opportune moment to permanently gag the demon, an additional moment so he could sneak in one last paranoid’s attempt at exposing the supernatural, and then they were _out_.

.

.

.

.epilogue

Shane looked closer at Ryan. _Really_ looked at him. Despite the events of Sallie House having occurred less than twenty four hours ago, Ryan appeared completely rejuvenated. And Shane could reason it as the last bursts of triumphant adrenaline from leaving the Sallie House, yet there was something—something weird.

“You’re bouncing,” he said, as he slid into the booth. The last of their trip’s funds were going into a Denny’s. A place of yellow light, plastic seats, and terribly normal coffee. It was almost alarming how comforting a diner had become in the wake of Sallie House. “Why are you bouncing?”

“I’m about to get a steak skewer skillet,” Ryan enthused, pronouncing ‘skillet’ wrong. “I’ve been craving this for so long, man.”

It was the grin, Shane determined. Too bright and energetic for eleven at night. Especially without alcohol to blur Ryan’s apparent terror over a goddamn flashlight.

“So, uh…” He swirled his coffee. “What’s gonna be your excuse for not sleeping at the Sallie House?” There. A genuine question. All Shane knew was that Ryan had bargained for time away from the office in exchange for a long video about their attempts to encounter the supernatural.

“I’m gonna tell ‘em that there’s a fucking demon in the house, Shane,” said Ryan patiently. “You saw the flashlight. There’s nothing to question.”

Shane scoffed. Demons. Please. The paranormal ‘expert’ wanted in on the spectacle and set up the flashlight so the slightest movement would get it to go on and off. And flashlights were weird. Shane had been a boy scout, and he’d had his fair share of flashlight troubles.

Unfortunately, the scoff had caught Ryan’s attention. There was a wrinkling of eyebrows. “You,” Ryan struggled with his words, so obviously bewildered by Shane’s lack of belief. “After all that, you still don’t believe in demons?”

“Well, keep your voice down,” Shane said, shifting under the glare of a middle-aged mother. She was covering her son’s ears with both porcelain white hands. “And, uh, no. I still don’t believe you. Sallie House isn’t infested with demons. Never has been.”

“The flashlight!” hissed Ryan. He’d caught the mother’s evil eye as well. “I—the evidence of the, the demon tampering with the flashlight! Five times! On command!”

Their waiter dropped by with their plates, and the conversation stopped for a few seconds. Shane almost didn’t hear it, but once his mind latched onto the phenomenon, it made him pause over his waffle for a little while longer.

The diner had been… hushed after Ryan had noticed the mother’s glare.

And when the waiter had come back, the ambient noises from the kitchen, the other tables and booths, the shrill shriek of an unsatisfied customer—it had all rushed back, a flood from a broken dam. It ached, a bit like the feeling he got when he forgot about his headphones and went to walk away and was yanked back to reality.

“Something wrong?” Ryan asked, breaking Shane from his train of thought.

Hm. Maybe Shane had gotten a little too fixated on Ryan’s outlandish beliefs. Tunnel vision, except for the ears. “Nah,” said Shane. “But I’m gonna commit. Your ‘evidence’ is bogus. Coincidence! No one would believe it but the really hardcore.”

Ryan’s eyes widened. He stammered for a response, and then he settled on saying, “You know what? I’m gonna put it in the video. All the flashlight evidence.”

“Yeah? Even your screaming?”

“Yeah!” Ryan looked emboldened, though he flushed at the screaming bit. Not exactly his shining moment as a ghost-hunter there. “I’m putting it all in the video, and people are going to start taking my side over yours.”

His smile was victorious.

Shane snorted. “Yeah, they’ll take it ‘cause they pity you.” He drizzled syrup over the waffle, then picked up his mug of coffee. He toasted it in Ryan’s direction. “To the demon exposer. May you expose all demons to all mankind.”

Ryan’s smile wilted, turned a little forced. “I’ll, uh… I’ll reluctantly toast to that.”

.

.

.


	2. speak softly (but with a big stick of a man)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan's lack of intel gets him into a lot of trouble. Shane is unknowingly bailed out of many, many situations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so grateful for the responses to this story. And also so, so embarrassed it took this long to put out the second chapter. Season 4's already completed, and I've only updated to the opening of Season 2!
> 
> In any case, this chapter is more or less unbeta'd. Partly beta'd by vesperify in its early stages, but then I spent several months running into writer's block.
> 
> 8.14.18 - updated the tags, edited some glaring mistakes  
> 8.15.18 - illustrations are added!

/los angeles international airport/

“Hey,” said Shane, his voice distant because his head was a million miles away, “your phone’s buzzing.” His elbow knocked into Ryan’s arm, hard, because Ryan was doing his damned best to fall asleep by the luggage carousel. “Bergara.”

Shane’s tone was uncannily like the overseer’s. Irritable and almost reluctantly fond. Still bleary from the air travel, Ryan pulled his phone from his jacket’s pocket and checked the number.

Speak of the devil.

Sixes, all of them. From the area code to the last digit.

Ryan knocked Shane’s elbow and made hasty excuses for privacy, because he could predict what this particular call would be about, and he didn’t want to deal with a melted phone at the luggage carousel.

“I’ll—be somewhere over there,” said Ryan, gesturing blindly. His eyes were glued to the ten digits, to the ominous location of **???**.

“Uh-huh. Abandon me here, waiting for _your_ luggage—”

“ _Our_ luggage!” shouted Ryan, already hurrying away. He stepped around several families, huddled against a wall, clicked his tongue for a partial misdirection spell, and opened the call. He cleared his throat. “H e l l o?”

“ _B e r g a r a_ ,” his overseer said back. Ryan frantically tried to piece out the tone and concluded thusly: the overseer was fucking pissed. The only consolation was that the overseer had backed away from the hellfire and brimstone bellowing. “ _Guess what I heard from the Sallie House_.”

He scuffed his heel against the floor. The overseer had dropped the Cadence. Oh. Oh, g-d, this was it. Hell was going to pull him back and send him to a desk job, organizing the lost souls who’d wound up in Hell instead of permanent nonexistence.

Ryan coughed to readjust his voice. He hoped he wasn’t about to squeak out his response.

“Good things?” he squeaked.

Unimpressed, the overseer responded, “ _No. Do you know why?_ ” The question was rhetorical. “ _Because when I checked into the Sallie House, I heard nothing at all. Do you know what I found? A demon missing their voice._ ”

Like Ryan was going to let that little upstart take control of the narrative.

“They were—they were about to expose the supernatural to YouTube, by taking possession of one of the humans.” He glanced around for Shane, and Ryan saw him beginning to slouch against the conveyor belt, clearly dozing as Ryan’s luggage chugged past his grasp.

… Air travel was clearly taking its toll.

“And,” Ryan added, “it wasn’t like I dragged them back down home. The house is just going to be less… infested than it was before. This way, no one dies, the supernatural _looks like_ it doesn’t exist, but some people will still think it _might_ be real. And that’s the job you gave me, isn’t it?”

The overseer made a disgruntled hum.

Bergara’s job was to obfuscate knowledge of the supernatural. Hell (and Heaven, though they certainly weren’t about to agree with their counterparts) wanted a balance of knowledge and ignorance. It was easier back in the day, when all stories were hearsay and jumbled in a global game of Telephone.

With every advance in technology, the supernatural grew more leery of being discovered, dissected, and/or put on a leash. Demons and angels were fairly confident no human weapon could harm them, but leave it to a mortal to find out how to kill an interdimensional being.

“ _This_ will _be a mark against your otherwise impeccable record,_ ” said the overseer finally.

Little _upstart_. Ryan made a noise of agreement and witnessed Shane, apparently bored and masochistic, deliberately let Ryan’s suitcase drift by again. The man even slowly pivoted on his foot to match the pace of the carousel. Then Shane looked to where Ryan was, grinned, and saluted.

He had to wrap up this call. “I won’t do it again.”

“ _Best not._ ” And without even a cursory farewell, the overseer hung up.

Ryan jerked his phone away from his ear. It was overheated still, but at least it wasn’t melted or fried. He tucked it back into a pocket, clicked his tongue again to dispel the illusion, and leaned against the wall, arms crossed and a defiant look pasted on.

A battle of wills ensued as Shane saw him make no effort to return.

He could imagine the gauntlet being thrown down, both of them mulishly waiting for the other to give. The rest of the Buzzfeed Unsolved crew had been lucky; they’d retrieved their luggage and left with Ryan’s (ha!) blessing.

Ryan’s luggage came round again, but this time Shane was too busy typing on his phone, ‘I can pick up an Uber.’

He made a face and texted back, ‘And so I reveal my dastardly plan. I switched out half of your clothes with mine when you were out of the hotel room.’

Shane’s own expression went through several phases. It settled on disbelief after dancing between outrage, confusion, and amusement. ‘You did not,’ he accused, even as he started to track the black suitcase’s journey. ‘Who does that? No one.’

‘I will donate all your flannels to Goodwill,’ Ryan shot back. ‘Get me my suitcase. I’ll still drive you to your place.’

Five minutes later, Shane was glowering by Ryan’s side. “And everyone calls _me_ weird,” he said, scooting Ryan’s luggage over with a foot. “I still think you’re lying, by the way. This is just me acting outta my good ol’ heart.”

“Yep,” agreed Ryan, too grateful that Shane wasn’t the type to ask—

“Good phone call?”

“Absolutely.”

/los angeles/

“All Californian sites now, right?” asked Shane, spinning back and forth in his chair. “You blew the budget for half the investigating episodes.”

“Not half,” corrected Ryan. He was distracted with the audio from the Sallie venture, something he told the editing crew he’d review and cut personally. For good reason, though, and not just because the Sallie House was legitimate—it was because Ryan had clicked his tongue too many times for coincidence.

Without visual, Ryan sounded like a disapproving Asian mother. He supposed that _with_ visual aid, with all the shadows recoiling at the touch of abrasive magic, he’d be out of a job.

He would have to cut down on using curses. Wards, he might be able to slide by with, but anything improvised would be crude and liable to exploitation. The sigil he’d slapped on Shane had been the work of an amateur.

 _Damn_.

“What?”

Ryan blinked away from work. “Not half,” he repeated. “I’m compiling three in one episode for, uh, purposes.”

“Purposes,” echoed Shane flatly. “Ryan, we visited three locations for a collected total of several goddamn hours, how much are you cutting out?”

“I don’t want to string viewers out on two ten minute episodes, alright?” Ryan snipped back, building several more excuses in case that didn’t fly. From his headphones, he heard himself screaming about the basement flashlight.

The truth was, he didn’t need two videos of somewhat bullshit—the Barrera remnants were still something to mull on, really—and then one single video of hard evidence.

And Ryan couldn’t even toss the drive into the trash. The risk to his job, both his jobs, wasn’t worth it.

“We’re only investigating two more places for now,” muttered Ryan. Today was, if one could call it that, a rest day. Tomorrow night was the Whaley House, and two days after that, a stay on the Queen Mary. With any luck, Ryan would be able to double-check the areas before the investigations began.

“Both California?”

“All SoCal,” he confirmed.

/the whaley house/

San Diego, particularly this stretch of the city, was disinclined to pay respect to the dead. Ryan could hear the faint strains of raucous laughter every time the door to a bar opened, and he was hunched into the woolen collar of his jacket. Waiting for the dead to wake, as it were.

The Whaley House was nationally ranked, and it was local, and so Ryan Bergara and his merry band of skeptics were obliged to visit the damned household.

He scuffed his heels on the porch. A baby wailed.

 _Get it over with, Bergara_. Ryan checked his surroundings for any stray pedestrians, and casually clicked his tongue to slip past the locked door. The Winchester House had been a stroke of luck and some last-second manipulation; he was determined to make sure the first successful negotiation had not been a fluke.

“Demon!” shrieked a young child, already trying to batter Ryan’s knees.

“Jesus!” yelped Ryan. He flinched away; the apparition wasn’t doing him harm, but Ryan could tolerate only so much screaming. “Mr. Whaley,” he chanced, trying to push the kid back with a gentle hand, “may I have an audience?”

A man limped into existence, heavy footfalls echoing into nothingness. He was a big man, with a rough beard on a craggy face. Presumably, the infamous Yankee Jim Robinson, though he clearly had no such reputation to the child now latching onto his leg. “Whaley’s being a shit. What d’you want?”

“I, uh…” Ryan stalled, peering up at the ghost. Robinson, as a man who _hadn’t_ been of the Whaley family, was exempt from a household head’s decree. Ryan would hazard that the child wasn’t of Whaley descent either.

“Spit it out,” said Robinson. The kid echoed him.

Ryan made a snap decision. “I’m coming back tomorrow with a film crew,” he informed the apparition. “I need the Whaley House to be only _slightly_ haunted, which means no apparitions or talking whatsoever from anyone of you.”

-

The Whaley House was home to many ghosts, but all were amiable to the terms Ryan set.

The adults, at least.

-

“My flashlight went out,” said Shane quietly. He looked utterly at peace, and Ryan, sat in the jury box, tried not to panic at the nameless child’s proximity to the human. The kid pulled her fingers away from the now-drained flashlight, cupped her hands, and ran over to the lines of wooden chairs.

The young woman to his left remained silent. Ryan could see her holding a finger to her lips, the timeless gesture to _be quiet_. Rather fortuitously, the mislabeled ‘spiritual vortex’ masked their translucent forms to the camera, but this was an enormous loophole Ryan had neglected to close.

Ryan waited a heartbeat.

“Are you serious?” His leg wanted to bounce, and his fingers itched to drum his thigh. Shane kept clicking the switch. “Perhaps—” Ryan stopped short, then valiantly tried to salvage Shane’s skepticism. “Battery?”

“No,” Shane confirmed. He sounded fascinated by the phenomenon. “I mean, possibly, but—” This kid’s _fucking timing_. “I don’t know.”

The kid got onto the chair to his right. Ryan, now overly sensitive to the sounds and movements, made the unfortunate move of sparing a glare for her. Did the chair squeak? Was his microphone about to catch the faint noises of her stifled giggles? Why didn’t he implement a time-out corner?

Ryan abruptly remembered the reality of his situation and wrenched himself back to face Shane.

It caught Shane’s eye. But more importantly, the entirety of Ryan’s babbling meltdown (all, unfortunately, very candid as the kid succeeded in transferring the static shock to him) renewed Shane’s earnest disbelief.

-

Out of pity, the Buzzfeed Unsolved crew left Ryan to his own devices after his experience under the archway. He was unspeakably grateful to temporarily postpone the mock interview, because Ryan’s senses were going into overdrive, reaching, stretching, _grasping_ for any clue as to what had happened.

(“ _Bergara_ ,” they breathed, and he scrambled to his feet, spinning to confront the being with a black glare. And nothing. A closer look revealed his surroundings to hold nothing supernatural at all.

It was the island of the dolls all over again—wait.

Where were the ghosts?)

Shane came over upon minute two of Hysterical Reflection. “You alright?” he asked, voice lower than normal. For Ryan’s preservation of dignity, perhaps.

Ryan looked up at Shane, at his comfortingly sensible _human_ self, and he nodded.

/queen mary/

Ryan Bergara came with a backstory. His overseer wouldn’t let Bergara leave without constructing a life, bulletproof to any interrogation available. School records, social media profiles, DMV certificates, an SSN—romantic relationships were never fabricated, however.

Nor did Bergara ever attempt to link his shell to one of the many _human_ Bergaras in the world.

No, he preferred an immensely powerful compulsion of blissful ignorance to false relationships. Anyone who found themselves on that route of conversation forgot about it, jumping from ‘What’s your mom like?’ to ‘What’s your favorite food?’

Anyway.

When Bergara planned how to pitch the show to Buzzfeed, he figured he needed to provide a reason for his ‘belief’ in the supernatural. Logistical constraints limited his choices, and so the Queen Mary tale was fabricated. Before his shell matured to an adult, he took it on a joyride with some of his colleagues.

“T h i s  i s  b e n e a t h  m e,” one had complained. They still had flipped the toothpaste canister off the sink shelf. Bergara—a consummate actor—had sufficiently freaked.

Was the Queen Mary haunted? Of course.

For the duration of the night’s filming? Not if Ryan had his way.

-

Too many souls wandered the Queen Mary for Ryan to negotiate one by one.

“This is fine,” he told himself, slightly unnerved by the eerie silence from the nightshift crew. Inside the Queen’s Salon, the polished dance floor gleamed. “If you don’t try this right now, you’ll never have a back-up plan to all the future fuck-ups.” Ryan centered himself and faced the stage’s curtains, the half-grand piano, the grandiose oversized wall decor.

He closed his eyes. And then he pulled the Queen Mary to him.

To clarify: he was calling the ship’s manifestation, not any particular specter named the Queen Mary. There had to be one: the more people pressed their hands on the vessel and asked it to carry them safely, the more people consigned their souls to seep into the ship’s steel bones—well. The more the ship became alive.

“You called?” asked a young woman.

He opened his eyes. She was seated upon the stage, hands in her lap, head cocked to the side.

“You wanna make a deal?”

Fifty souls to eternal peace, no detour to Hell. In exchange, Ryan would get absolutely no manifestations from the ghosts, as well as permission to ward the ship against outside forces. The ghosts were given very little leeway in their movements, so Ryan suspected some of the more petty ones would make noise out of spite.

Fine by him. They wouldn’t come close to the camera anyway.

-

A number of ‘incidents’ occurred aboard the Queen Mary, but to Ryan’s relief, no apparitions haunting the edges of his vision ever crossed the line. The answering knocks and creaks to his and Shane’s questions were small things, easily played off as atmospheric sounds. For a good half of the night, Ryan pretended he was terrified of ghosts.

Then the pigeon happened. Ryan hadn’t predicted the pigeon.

The bird’s eyes gleamed yellow in that split second, when he had fallen back against the wall, breathless with the rush of adrenaline.

It fluttered back to its initial perch, and Ryan stumbled after it to the balcony railing, desperate to steal a second glance.

 _No fucking way_. It wasn’t quite a demon, but it wasn’t exactly a _ghost_. It could not have bypassed his wards, so it must have always been aboard. And on top of that, it was a creature capable of possession. With horror, Ryan remembered the sleeping arrangements he made with the company.

It was hours to daybreak. Hours for Shane to succumb to REM sleep.

REM sleep made the mind vulnerable to possession; from dreams, demons. Ryan had ushered Shane out of the Sallie House before any harm was possible (the sigil had disintegrated by then), which broke the promise he’d made the executives, but they’d accepted his fear of demons as an excuse.

Here, though, Ryan could lose credibility as a thorough worker if he didn’t spend the night.

“Oh my God,” wheezed Ryan, bracing himself against the cold metal. He issued a silent, guilty apology for the imminent sleepless night. “I almost—” He huffed out the last of his terror. “My fucking heart almost exploded, dude.”

“Your hard-on exploded?”

Ryan rescinded the mental apology.

-

Cabin B340. Empty of the supernatural, but also of any creature comforts. In addition to the poor environment, it was being harassed by the spirit, who had jumped and was still jumping shells. Rats, by the sound of it. Fortunately, the cabin locked it out.

His imagination encouraged the visual aid of ritual rat cannibalism. His senses concurred, because with every chittering squeal, the spirit’s presence grew a shade stronger.

Oh. Maybe that was why the Queen Mary let it fucking on; it wasn’t harming _her_ charges.

“Whoa, what the fuck is that?” asked Shane, voice rough and sleepy and intrigued.

 _Do not say ritual rat cannibalism_ , said Ryan’s sleep-deprived conscious. His eyes flicked to the source of the sound, then back to Shane. An argument later, one ended by declaring cats were fighting outside instead of supernatural causes, Ryan realized: Shane Madej was falling asleep.

He weighed his chances of binding the malevolent spirit before the dawn came.

… He could cut this segment from the video.

Ryan clicked his tongue, obnoxiously loud, and Shane startled back into a bleary state of consciousness. “Wha’s happ’nin’,” he slurred into his pillow.

“Nothing,” Ryan said. He listened hard for the spirit. “Was just thinking how dumb it is that you said cats.” He clicked his tongue again, a sharp warning cracking the oppressive damp darkness. “Very dumb.”

“Bleh,” mumbled Shane, lapsing into silence.

4AM. Dawn broke in two to three hours. REM sleep occurred in hour and a half intervals.

Shane needed a good kick to the brain, something more intriguing than animals fighting in the dark. Ryan would have to egg him on, of course, peppering the air with baited conversation, but the important thing was Shane being mentally attentive.

The spirit coughed something from behind the door, and Ryan got his excuse to incentivize Shane awake until around five-thirty, at which point Shane just… completely knocked out.

When Shane stopped responding to pokes, verbal jabs, and a nervous kick to the shin, Ryan squirmed out of his sleeping bag. “Bathroom break,” he told the camera with a guilty chuckle, and he toed on his sneakers to go confront the little bastard.

Whatever sleep Ryan managed to grab after disposing the spirit, it was immediately ruined by Shane’s own kick to his sleeping roll.

And by then, it was morning.

/los angeles/

Buzzfeed Unsolved got its renewal. It was a roaring success, how was it _not_ going to get a renewal? Investigations into the supernatural interested people, and amused the skeptics, especially when they saw Ryan jump at nothing and Shane mercilessly mock him. The episodes of True Crime were less popular, but still garnered strong support.

This was the price Ryan set: he’d do only one demon episode per supernatural season, however many seasons they could push the show for.

“I don’t mess with demons,” said Ryan cagily.

The executives thought Ryan’s fear of possession made him wary. But no, Ryan didn’t want to do consecutive episodes of demons because Shane fucking Madej would, undoubtedly, tempt them. Tempt them into murder.

Ryan was trying to cut down on heart attacks.

“That’s fair,” said one of the executives. “Make those episodes count, then.”

/wilder, kentucky/

A problem Ryan had not foreseen in choosing—in being pressured in choosing, really—Bobby Mackey’s as the opener to Season Two: the distance from civilization. All the locations thus far had been mired in what Ryan liked to label ‘the neutralizing agent of humanity.’ Even the Sallie House sat in a nondescript neighborhood.

Getting to Wilder, Kentucky took longer than scheduled. Ryan, jetlagged and ready to give up on airplanes altogether, found no time to squeeze in a preliminary visit.

The plan was to scout tonight and then retrieve holy water while daylight existed. With the first part ruined, Ryan resigned himself to creeping along the crew’s bedsides and warding their equipment. Warding their persons took more effort than it was worth, given their silent and _respectful_ presence in the videos.

Bobby Mackey’s reputation was only that of a portal to Hell, which was partially true. Last Ryan heard, it was manned by a curmudgeonly demon.

Ryan had, truth be told, forgotten the demon’s name. He hoped it wouldn’t bite him in the ass later.

-

As befitting Kentucky, the number of churches was excessive.

Despite that, Ryan could not find one church to open its doors. The consecrated ground was quietly hissing away, warming the rubber soles of his sneakers. The doors themselves stung his fingers and palms when he touched it with bare skin. After the eighth church had rejected Ryan’s presence, Ryan was glumly forced to admit defeat.

No negotiation, no holy water—if his luck would just swing back, maybe there would be no demon.

/bobby mackey’s/

His luck didn’t swing back. From the relative safety of the car interior, Ryan could feel the sleepy twitch of awareness from the demon inside the bar.

“You alright, man?” asked Shane, concern bleeding past the amusement. He twisted around in the passenger seat, trying to see Bobby Mackey’s in the weak lamplight. “It, uh, doesn’t look too bad? It’s not very murder-y, if that thought’s a comfort.”

“Why would I need comfort?” Ryan shot back. Cold sweat prickled the back of his neck, and if Shane didn’t hear the nervous pitch of his voice, Ryan would have to reevaluate the man’s detective skills.

“You’ve got that look.” The man wiggled his fingers. “Y’know, _that_ look.”

“Thanks,” said Ryan. “I can’t believe I ever doubted our friendship.” He fumbled for his phone to text TJ, and he tried not to think about the inquisitive rumbling only heard by him. The equipment was warded to the _nines_. Any EVPs would be consigned to muffled static or silence.

Visuals? Well, so long as the demon didn’t inhabit a human shell—like the Sallie House demon, who had spread themselves thin possessing the wooden bones and wire veins of a house—it didn’t matter if they could manifest in front of Ryan. It wouldn’t register on the camera.

So, no demon fuckery tonight.

-

The old gatekeeper looked on Ryan and Shane’s venture with a patronizing, almost grandparent-like eye. They were undoubtedly confused by Ryan’s diminished appearance, but they were more than happy to watch silently from the cracked walls.

Then Shane pissed them off.

It was the man’s ineffable flippancy towards the supernatural. Ryan despaired of it often.

As the crew made their way into the basement, as Ryan and Shane stepped closer and closer to that little makeshift prison cell, the gatekeeper appeared by Ryan’s side. They had a stooped posture and a close-cropped beard. Eyes like obsidian shards narrowed in on Shane’s gangly figure.

“W o w,” said the gatekeeper.

Ryan’s mouth flattened into a tight, thin line. He struggled not to respond to the demon’s increasingly bitter comments, which were at first self-deprecatory, but soon turned onto Shane’s face, Ryan’s stature—even the crew was scorned.

He covered his clip-on mic and hissed under his breath, “ _Please_ , shut the fuck up.”

“W e l l , I  _n e v e r!"_  the old bastard huffed.

They took their seats on the ancient folding chairs, and Shane put the lit flashlight into the brick wall crevice. And then the demon sulkily stole the light, nipping the energy from the bulb with two quick fingers and tucking it into their palm.

The gatekeeper proceeded to use Ryan as a perch.

Ryan felt his eyes pop wide open. The old demon was heavier than they appeared, and Ryan was forced to brace against the strain, leaning on one thigh for stability.

“Now what?” asked Shane, like Ryan could _fucking_ focus on anything right now besides being Atlas.

“I, um,” he managed to blurt anyway.

“Now what, Ryan?”

He latched onto the familiar exchange of skeptic versus believer, where Shane prodded Ryan into propping up absurd theories to explain supernatural phenomena. “Shut up, Shane,” said Ryan automatically, and he tried rolling his shoulder.

Shane, naturally ignoring Ryan’s command, started to experiment. “Demon,” he opened, “turn it on… if you’re planning to do us harm… tonight.”

Obviously, nothing happened. Any way the demon tried spinning the dare, the gatekeeper would still be incapable of causing serious injury.

Ryan still jeered at Shane. Small victories, small victories. It was a good distraction from the ethereal claws beginning to press uncomfortably on his shoulder, until the moment Ryan was too distracted to stop Shane’s next bullshit declaration.

“Turn it on if you wanna hurt us!”

The old gatekeeper shoved back in the light.

“FUCKING, SHIT, GOD—WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING IT QUESTIONS LIKE THAT _,_ ” demanded Ryan, over Shane’s almost impressed guffaw. On the bright side, the demon was easing off Ryan’s shoulders, slithering and positioning itself on top of the pipe above the flashlight, curving down so one hand was poised over the modern technology.

Maybe it was because of Ryan’s tendency to giggle nervously when his job was threatened, but Shane seemed to almost _relax_.

“It’s just a coincidence,” he retorted, matching Ryan’s urgency. “Here, look, I’m gonna try saying something else, and watch, it’ll do _nothing_ because those two times were a _fluke!"_   Undeterred by Ryan’s aghast expression, Shane proceeded to clear his throat. “Turn it off, if, uh, if you think, uh—”

Ryan wanted to look away, badly. This was an uncontrolled situation, to the _nines_. An ungagged demon was going to try and gather strength for another fortuitous flashlight scene, Shane was improvising on the spot—oh, he did _not_.

“ _Why_ would you ask it that?”

“He lives in Los Angeles, but—” continued Shane, blissfully unaware of the target he was painting on Ryan’s back.

“Even if it’s—” spluttered Ryan, over the voiced thought process about how the old gatekeeper would have to navigate distance and complex targeting. “This is—why would you even take the chance—”

Laughably, Ryan believed that the worst had passed. Sure, Ryan’s location was now leaked to a bad-tempered old demon who definitely had contacts in Hell, but the old gatekeeper hadn’t messed with the flashlight again, so this was baseless speculation.

Harmless!

“Ugh,” Shane said. “I gotta up my game.”

“No,” Ryan hurried to respond, because volume really did factor into communicating with demons, and the crusty bastard was perking up in interest, “you really don’t—“

“DEMONS,” the human bellowed.

G-ddamn, shit, fuck, he could _see_ the gatekeeper straining to influence the light. It was weakening. It was weakening, and it wasn’t like Ryan could force the demon back _now_. TJ was honing in with the main camera, his interest piqued. Shane’s handheld camera remained steady on recording all of Ryan’s reactions, and the go-cam on his chest played back-up.

“FUCKING—I’M NOT—”

“TURN THE LIGHT OFF,” demanded Shane.

They were shouting at the same time, or it was more Shane bulldozing over Ryan’s frantic attempts to shut him up. Above the both of them, the old gatekeeper was baring their teeth in a crude imitation of a smile.

“DEMONS,” he repeated, “YOU’RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH.”

Almost instantly, the demon’s smile dropped. When Ryan saw its diminished state into a scowl, he swore under his breath.

“ _PLUNGE_ US INTO _DARKNESS_ , DEMONS.”

Well. Okay. The overdramatic nature of Shane’s yelling was helping; Ryan had broken back into his nervous giggles. “What is wrong with you,” he managed to accuse, grinning the whole time.

“DEMONS-S-S.”

“Oh my God, you have a death wish—”

“DEMONS, YOU COWARDS—”

Now Ryan’s smile dropped. “You have a death wish!” he repeated, a tad more urgently than last time.

Shane noticed, evidently, because he lowered the volume of his voice and started to laugh the entire experience off, trying to encourage Ryan to overcome his apparent fears. “It’s a bunch of baloney, man,” he reassured. Abruptly, he stood. “C’mon, let’s go check out the other places.”

-

In-between the time it took to leave the makeshift prison cell and find the well room—incidentally, the actual portal to hell, inaccessible to the mortal conscious—Ryan heard the gatekeeper restart his century-long list of complaints about littering humans. Cultists had tossed in more dead animals than the demon cared to consume, and try as they might to contain the tainted reputation of the bar, the intense attention paid to Bobby Mackey’s discouraged demons from using the portal.

“I t ‘s  f u c k i n g  b o r i n g,” insisted the gatekeeper.

“This is a real gem of a location, Ryan,” said Shane. “I’ve, uh, had lots of fun in the dust and cobwebs, and the _basement_ , can’t forget about that.”

“ _God_ ,” Ryan said, relishing the sound even as his tongue burned. The gatekeeper flinched back and gaped at the blasphemy, but at least they stopped rambling. Oh, that was well worth the lost tastebuds. “Speaking of the basement, never do that again.”

“What, try and expose the supernatural for you?”

“I—no, that’s not, that’s not what you did,” he corrected. “You absolutely did not do that.”

“Ryan,” Shane condescended, “the supernatural isn’t going to come out for a pretty please, say something to us while we wait in awkward silence.”

They were approaching the well room; Ryan _needed_ Shane to promise never to do something that dumb ever again. Few Ryan Bergaras existed in the world, and it took only the Internet for some cocky supernatural being to hunt down the Los Angeles one.

“Just don’t do it again, please,” said Ryan. Something must have been in his face or voice—terror, maybe—for Shane to finally take notice, but at last the man agreed.

-

Two minutes each, alone in the well room, a red rope looped around their waist. The red rope trick was a show; there was no power inherent in the coloring of the cord, or even the cord itself. However, Ryan hadn’t lied about its presence in the Old Testament—only its function… and the occasion in which the red rope was used.

The instant Ryan stepped into the well room, he found the reason why Bobby Mackey’s gate was so rarely used: something _big_ and _pale_ was sat upon the well, and it was staring at Ryan with luminous eyes, intimidatingly intelligent.

“Ah—fucking—Christ—” He looked back to see the gatekeeper’s guilty expression, the helpless shrug of the shoulders that meant they definitely hadn’t reported this _parasite_ on one of the many doorsteps to Hell.

Ryan did the only thing he could. Babble in a quavering voice. It helped that his tongue was feeling the consequences of spitting so many blasphemous words in a short period of time.

“Ryan, you okay in there?” asked Shane.

“I’m fine, I’m just—walking around,” Ryan answered, gingerly circling the well and its gargantuan being. He couldn’t help but stare at it. What the fuck was it feeding off of, to be this size? For that matter, _what_ was it?Under his breath, he mumbled, “You’re gonna be okay, Ryan, you’re gonna be fine…”

“Ryan, would you be quiet?”

For the camera, Bergara, just concede for the camera. “I’m gonna be quiet now…”

“You’ve got two minutes.”

Wait, what the fuck. “Two minutes—I thought we already did the two minutes!” G-d, if Shane tried to fuck him over and trap him here for a second longer, Ryan was going to lose it. Next demon location they did, Ryan was going to give _no_ fucks. He had the priority job here, screw etiquette, screw the job reviews.

“No, I’m saying we just finished.”

Ryan pictured throwing Shane into a wall, and reluctantly let the fantasy go. They traded places; as Shane was busy knotting the red cord around his skinny frame, Ryan got a hasty ‘I’m not to blame for this situation’ from the gatekeeper.

He made a mental note to cut his audio. “I’m reporting your spineless tail to the overseers,” he breathed, trying his damnedest to communicate without catching TJ’s attention.

“I t ‘s  n o t  m y  f a u l t!”

He saw Shane hopping in place, testing the security of the knot. “Okay,” said Shane cheerfully, “I feel safe!” A smile later, he continued, “Going into the demon hole!”

Ryan envied Shane’s oblivious mortal brain, and he bit off a terse, “You’re on your own.” He might have also envied Shane’s mouth as it improvised a speech, beginning with a, “Hey there demons, it’s me, ya boi…” but then he started _baiting_ , tempting, offering himself to the whims of a gatekeeper demon.

He locked eyes with the demon, who’d stuttered to a stop to hear Shane begrudgingly give Ryan credit, and then cocked their head in hungry interest for this bold mortal.

 _Not good_ , bemoaned Ryan. He clutched the useless red rope with a white-knuckled fist.

“Alright,” concluded Shane, “maintaining silence now, _do_ try to kill me.”

No, not good at all.

“I ‘ l l  t r a d e,” said the gatekeeper suddenly. “M e  f o r  h i m.” A sly, wide, toothy smile was warping the demon’s features, and their eyes—black mirrors, glinting in the faint light provided by the camera crew—were triumphant. They had the upper hand here, and fuck them, they delighted in it.

It wasn’t a question of priorities though. Ryan’s first instinct—a very undemonly instinct, truth be told—was to bail out Shane’s ass again. Not because an endangered Shane meant the exposure of the supernatural, but because he was worried for Shane himself.

Ryan couldn’t even determine whether it was a bluff, because the old bastard _would_ be willing to… inconvenience Ryan, even at the cost of being reported.

And the offer Shane had thrown out willy-nilly didn’t end at the premises of the house. Not with the way he’d phrased it.

“S w e a r  o n  i t,” the demon insisted. One clawed hand reached out to grip the doorframe, bony and liver-spotted.

 _Camera. Don’t forget about the camera_. Ryan flicked his eyes down to his boots, then back up at the demon, then back down to the dusty floor. With a toe, he tapped out a message of concession, masking it as a thinly-veiled nervous tic, innocuous to any witness. Sonuvabitch wouldn’t get reported, but Ryan could at least send someone out to go exterminate the unknown being.

Or maybe the demon would also get consumed by it. That’d be a fitting ending.

“T h a n k s.”

One fake-out with the rope later, Shane exited the well room, unsurprised with his findings, and Ryan eagerly rushed them and the crew out of the building. He apparently went a little too fast, though, because Shane prodded Ryan into doing a secondary wrap-up during the drive back to civilization.

Ryan took the opportunity to accuse Shane of being a psychopath once again.

“Demons aren’t real,” huffed Shane, the faintest sign of bemusement in his laugh, “so that’s why I tend to be so… flip with them—”

“Or one of them’s gonna follow me home,” continued Ryan, relentless.

“Well, the only—the only way to really provoke ‘em is to provoke ‘em!”

“You didn’t need to provide a home address!”

.

.

.

.epilogue

Another demon, another diner. Well, Wilder didn’t have a Denny’s. Only a Waffle House with a skeleton staff, which suited Shane just fine.

It was only the two of them. The camera crew was exhausted, and Shane was too, but Ryan had the jitters—typical Ryan, he thought fondly—and he did offer to pay for the meal. He stirred the whip cream into his hot cocoa and tried to see if this would become a pattern. Of all the locations they’d visited, only the Sallie House had sent Ryan into the welcoming plastic booths of 24/7 diners.

Once is by chance, twice by coincidence.

“Did it really worry you?” he asked, abrupt. Ryan was staring out the window into the inky darkness, and he was running one hand’s fingernails against the other, washboard fashion.

Shane could admit the sight worried _him_.

Ryan’s eyes snapped back to meet his, and for a disquieting second, they studied Shane, clinically taking in all his lanky, weary glory. Then they blinked, and Ryan was Ryan again.

“Did what worry me?”

“The flashlight. The well room. Bobby Mackey’s. Take your pick, you looked scared as hell for all of it.”

“Well,” said Ryan expansively. “I think that’s a bit of exaggeration, good sir.” At a raised eyebrow, Ryan dropped the swagger, dropped back against the booth seating. “… Maybe,” he allowed.

Shane grinned. “Definitely?” he suggested.

“ _Probably_.” Ryan grinned back, settling into the banter. Oddly warming, that smile. “It’s not a place I’d revisit, free beers or no. I bet happy hour’s a real downer.”

“You think they serve holy water?” asked Shane. “Maybe they commission all the churches to make holy water for them, stash it, make a profit.”

“I—what?” In spite of Shane theorizing to make a joke, Ryan seemed to be taking it seriously. “I—no, no way.” A forced laugh came out when Shane raised his mug to sip his drink. “I’m pretty sure I—wouldn’t like, the holiness of holy water go away if people monetized it?”

He peered over his mug. “Was that a serious question?”

“No?”

Shane set his mug down. “You did put Father Thomas’s holy water in a plastic water bottle,” he recalled. “And not even a reusable one. It was one of those bottles that get thrown into the Pacific and never decompose.”

Ryan protested, “I recycled that bottle!”

“And you don’t know where it ended up!” said Shane. “So who knows, really?” The look on Ryan’s face was downright mutinous, and it was matched by a disgruntled waiter’s expression as he set down two plates of waffles. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” said the waiter, and he left.

“We’re tipping him so hard.”

“We have to,” agreed Ryan, picking up his fork and knife. “To season two?”

“To season two!”

.

.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration comes and goes for this story; I wanna write the Goatman's Bridge, but at the same time, I know I gotta build up to it. But hey! Now I have a structure! Locations --> Demon Location --> Shane's diner epilogues.

**Author's Note:**

> the London trip is prefaced by Ryan attempting to FaceTime Crowley (as played by Riz Ahmed) and failing to because Crowley is with Aziraphale (as played by Richard Ayoade) trying to stop supernatural Britain from trying to expose themselves for Youtube


End file.
